“What I want to do and what I should do are two very different things.”
“Why don’t you tell me what they are, and we can decide together?”
Her lips purse before she takes one final swig. “I should go to bed.”
That’s the opposite of what I think she should do, but I know when to keep my mouth shut.
Now isn’t the time for games or goading. Loren is in charge tonight.
“But I really want to kiss you again.”
“Why can’t we do both?” I ease forward until our breaths mingle, waiting for her to close the distance. When she does, my heart goes into overdrive, pumping all my blood south. She tastes like sunshine and smiles, happiness and effervesce. I can’t get enough, capturing her straightened hair while longing for the chaos of her curls, angling her head so my tongue can dive deeper between her parted lips.
She kisses with the same madness she embodies, the same unbridled passion.
“I need to go to bed,” I murmur against her lips, “and you need to go to bed, and there’s a bed right in there.”
“True. But I’m not having sex with you tonight.”
A small part of me leaps at the fact that she said “tonight” instead of saying we are never having sex.
“Damn. That sucks because weepy women are such a turn-on for me.”
“Shut up.” Chuckling, she links our hands together, leading us to her room.
I sink onto the end of her bed and wait while she scoops up her pajamas from the floor and vanishes into the bathroom.
She comes back a few minutes later, her long legs on display beneath the shortest shorts known to man. “You don’t have to stay in here just for me if you don’t want to. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“What makes you think this is just for you? Why can’t it be for me too?” Ilikesleeping with a woman in my bed, whether we have sex or not. I miss the connection, knowing someone else is there.
She drops onto the other side of the bed. “Josh never wanted to sleep with me.”
“I think we can both agree that guy is a shithead.”
The smallest smile teases her lips. “True. I guess I assumed a guy like you wouldn’t be big on snuggling.”
“First, I’ll have you know that I fucking love snuggling. Second, what do you mean a guy like me?”
“Commitment-phobes.”
Shit.
Okay.
It’s time.
I swallow the flippant answer I’d normally give and tell her the truth instead. “This room? It belonged to my ex. She’d sleep in here sometimes when she had to work nights at the hospital.”
From the way her jaw drops, you’d swear I just admitted to being a serial arsonist. “Hold on. You had a girlfriend? How long were the two of you together?”
“Fifteen years.”
She snorts but sobers almost as quickly. “Wait. Are you serious?”
“Yep. We met our first year of middle school.”
“And you dated her until you were twenty-seven?”
